Important Facts About Babies and Kids

Month: January 2018

The way in which food items sold at stores are packaged is just as important as the way they are produced in the first place. The reason for this is that proper packaging techniques help to preserve food for a longer period of time without its qualities getting altered or the food itself getting spoilt after a short period of time. Packaging is what provides the necessary insulation against excessive heat or cold, not to mention preventing animals and small insects from attempting to eat the food themselves. So you can already understand the importance of having a good package for all kinds of food materials out there.

When it comes to suitable packaging materials for food items, we are left with only a few worthwhile choices. The two most prominent ones nowadays are paper packaging and plastic packaging. There are several differences between the two, with some people preferring either one or the other, but both have their own advantages and disadvantages, which means that there is no clear winner out of the two. The following few paragraphs describe each type of packaging in more detail, so keep on reading if you are interested in getting more information:

First, let’s take a look at paper packaging. Paper is generally thought to be harmless to human health, which means that it can be safely used as a container for all kinds of food materials, even those which are in direct contact with the packaging material. Paper is cheap and easy to manufacture, seeing as it is also used for making things like stationery, A4 sheets, and various other applications. Normal paper is also biodegradable, meaning that it doesn’t harm the environment like other types of man-made products. Thus, we can find paper as the favored option for things such as ready to eat packaging Singapore.

Paper packages do have quite a few disadvantages as well. The first one is definitely the issue of cutting down more trees to make paper. Even though paper is recyclable, our current demand means that we need to make a lot of new paper in addition to the one being recycled. Felling down trees means that we are contributing to the issue of global warming, an increased likelihood of flooding and landslides, depletion of rainforests, etc.

Plastic packaging is advantageous when we consider its strong points. It is tougher than paper packaging, meaning it can actually withstand an impact and come out unscathed, which is critical to avoid excessive damage during transportation of food products. Additionally, plastic can be manufactured in bulk without issues, as we don’t have to depend on trees or other similar things for plastic production. The customizability of plastic products makes them worthwhile for use in just about anything, ranging from baking products to chocolates, flour packages, pre-made meals, etc.

What really hurts plastic packaging, though, is the fact that a lot of these packages are very active chemically. Thus, the packages can easily leak harmful chemicals into the food we eat given the right conditions, such as storing food for too long in the same container, heating the container up to a certain temperature or even using containers which are unsuitable for food preservation. Newly designed plastic packaging has gone a long way in curbing this issue, but we are still a long way from declaring all plastic packages to be safe.